


Gone to Port Royal

by jauneclair



Category: Black Sails, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, background Eleanor/Woodes, background Elizabeth/Norrington
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-05 21:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11022336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jauneclair/pseuds/jauneclair
Summary: After surrendering Nassau, Mrs. Woodes Rogers meets Mrs. James Norrington in Port Royal. Pirates ensue.





	Gone to Port Royal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



> Sooooo...this was intended to be lighthearted romp in which Eleanor meets Elizabeth Swann (now married to Norrington) in Port Royal, timelines and canon be damned, but sort of evolved into what you might call an alternate beginning to the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
> 
> Not super shippy, but the focus IS on Eleanor and Elizabeth, though other characters from BS and POTC appear in various capacities.

Port Royal, much like Nassau, had a fort. Eleanor went up to the battlements when permitted, and occasionally when she wasn't, so that she could look out over the wide expanse of sea.

Though that wasn't true. She was always looking at something else. Somewhere else.

Unlike Nassau's, Port Royal's fort was securely in the hands of the British. She'd thought that was something she'd come to bear more easily; that walking away was the correct choice. And it had been that, her choice, and God knew that there were people here who would never quite let her forget it.

"Mrs. Rogers," a voice that Eleanor recognized said from behind her.

The polite thing to do would be to turn around and greet her. However, since the young woman's guardians had spent the past few weeks spiriting her out of Eleanor's presence, as if she would be ruined for society by sharing the same room, and the young woman herself was quite convinced that Eleanor was still a pirate despite her petticoats, Eleanor decided that the conceits of civilization were unnecessary in this instance. She contented herself with a nod as the other woman stepped up beside her.

"Mrs. Norrington."

Mrs. Norrington's hands - paler, softer, younger than Eleanor's - rose to rest on the wall as she, too, looked out.

"You may call me Elizabeth, you know," she said.

 _So you've mentioned,_ Eleanor wished to say, but - polite society and all. She smiled tightly and resolved to suffer in as few words as possible.

The other woman apparently took this as an invitation to continue, because she peered at Eleanor from beneath her bonnet and said, "I admit that I don't know what to make of you, Mrs. Rogers."

"Most people don't."

"I apologize, but I meant that" - and only the governor's daughter could get away with speaking to her this way - "there were many people in London who questioned my father's decision to bring me with him to Port Royal all those years ago, thinking that it was an uncivilized place. Though by London standards, most things are. But it has occurred to me that we are not so dissimilar in this, even if Nassau is - less civilized than here by most accounts."

"And your point?"

"My point," Elizabeth said, her lips quirking into a smile, "is that a shared experience should make for the basis of friendship, don't you think?"

 _I don't have friends,_ Eleanor thought. _I have partners._

But before she could open her mouth to say this and finally drive the other woman off for good, she thought, _Why not?_ Eleanor Guthrie hadn't had friends. But that wasn't who she was anymore - not since the moment that she had surrendered the fort to Flint and John Silver. Perhaps it was time to try something new.

"Very well," Eleanor said. "But I don't know that I'll be any good at it."

Elizabeth's smile only grew brighter. She extended an arm. "Shall we walk?"

They circled the parapet. Eleanor didn't speak much, though she did occasionally raise an answer to a (cunningly crafted) question or three; instead she listened to Elizabeth speak about her childhood, about her father (Eleanor tried not to begrudge the other woman her superior fortune in that category), about Port Royal, about her husband, about pirates who'd tried to enter Port Royal's harbor. On the issue of piracy and pirates themselves, Eleanor remained steadfastly silent.

She didn't know how long they walked and talked for, but when they paused to take a rest on top of the battlements, Eleanor found herself staring out over the waters again.

Elizabeth leaned over, one hand on her stomach.

"Are you feeling ill?" Eleanor asked.

"I just need - to catch my breath," Elizabeth said, waving her off.

 _Corsets_ , Eleanor predicted. Just another thing that civilization sought to impose upon them.

What she did not predict was for the other woman to swoon, her body gracelessly dropping between a gap in the parapet as she fainted. Eleanor's hand shot out, an instant too late, and closed on empty air.

* * *

No one would permit her on the docks despite her outrage and wheedling, so beyond being assured of Elizabeth's well-being, Eleanor was forced to wait until dinnertime to hear the finer details secondhand.

"The name of the pirate who rescued her is Sparrow," Woodes told her as they ate. "Captain Jack Sparrow, or so he claims. He's sitting in the gaol, awaiting a noose."

"I don't know him," Eleanor said. "But any fool can hoist a yard of black cloth and claim himself a captain. A crew doesn't necessarily follow."

"You're certain you've never heard of him?"

Eleanor nodded.

Woodes huffed. "I don't know whether Commodore Norrington will be pleased or disappointed."

"Commodore Norrington should stuff his pride and ask me himself if he wishes to pick my brain on the subject of piracy in the West Indies."

Her husband sighed and set down his knife with deliberate, practiced calm. "This isn't Nassau."

"I've looked around and I'm well aware."

They sat in silence for a few moments, dinner half-finished, when Woodes said,

"Some suspect you pushed her."

"Why the fuck would I do that? Nevermind - of course they do!" Eleanor slapped her dinner napkin onto the table. But she would _not_ jump up and storm away from this table. One of them ought to have that much self-control. "And what about her protestations to the contrary? Let me guess - she will have been too addled by the experience to remember precisely the events leading up to it, and so her words mean nothing!"

"She did nearly drown, Eleanor."

"I almost bloody well witnessed it! Until she was rescued by a pirate while several good God-fearing men of His Majesty's Royal Navy looked on in shock and awe! The only less satisfactory conclusion for all involved would have been if I had rescued her myself, soggy petticoats and all, which given how things look to shake out, might have been the most advisable course of action."

Woodes was silent, his hands resting on the table, looking elsewhere.

"Did you even bother to defend me?"

Her husband roused himself to a sigh. "It is a nasty bit of gossip and will pass. And you know it's not so simple, when I am attempting to curry favor with the governor and the naval commanders here so that we might eventually make our return to Nassau."

"If we're going to fight about the _fucking_ fort, and the _fucking_ rest of it, I would at least appreciate the courtesy of some advanced notice so that I can have a drink first!"

The ensuing row lasted for either minutes or hours, and at the end of it, Woodes left the house and Eleanor alone.

* * *

The only thing that prevented Eleanor from throwing herself into the bottom of a bottle of rum and then into bed was a knock on the door at quarter-past ten, which heralded the arrival of her new "friend."

"What are you doing here?" Eleanor asked after Mrs. Hudson showed Elizabeth in. "Surely you should be resting."

Elizabeth grabbed her hand so tightly that Eleanor thought her bones would pop. "I must tell you something about what happened today." Her eyes darted to the edges of the room, the door through which Mrs. Hudson had just left but at which she was probably still listening. "In private, if we could."

Eleanor shook herself free of the other woman's grip. "Is everything alright?" Aside from a bit of flush in the cheeks, Elizabeth looked fine, and not at all as if she had nearly died at the bottom of the harbor a few hours earlier. The flush Eleanor couldn't fault her for, because she herself had drunk a bit of that rum and was feeling a little light-headed.

"Please," Elizabeth begged.

So maybe it was the excess of drink, but Eleanor gave in and led Elizabeth upstairs, where they both sat on the bed and Elizabeth spun the most terrific tale of stolen pirate gold and pressed a medallion of it into Eleanor's palm.

"I felt this, this - echo. Of thunder. Rolling on waves beneath the sea." Elizabeth sighed and shook her head. "I'm sorry, it sounds ridiculous, but I know this to be true. And you're the only one I can show it to, because - "

"I'm a pirate," Eleanor said automatically. And then shut her mouth. She turned the medallion over in her hand.

It looked and felt to Eleanor like _money_.

"I'm sorry," she said, holding it up so that the gold flashed in the light. "But I suppose I have never believed in these stories, of these monsters who hide in the dark or in the mist. I've grown up with them. Pirates aren't monsters, they're just men. The reduction makes them far less terrifying."

Eleanor handed it back to her.

"Shall I call someone to escort you home? How did you even get here?"

Elizabeth's fingers reached out to brush against hers, sliding over the gold in Eleanor's palm. "I really would rather stay."

Her hand stayed pressed against Eleanor's for a moment that stretched on and on.

Until Eleanor stood up, knocking the gold piece onto the floor.

"I need some fresh air," she said, and went downstairs and outside.

She was standing outside, looking at the stars, when the cannons began to roar in the harbor.

* * *

By the time she ran back into the drawing room, Elizabeth and Mrs. Hudson were already both there.

"What's happening?" Elizabeth said.

" _Pirates_ ," Eleanor snarled. "Elizabeth, what did you bring with you? Mrs. Hudson, get whatever you need - we need to get to the fort."

It all seemed so familiar, because it was familiar, and if her pulse hadn't been hammering in her ears, Eleanor would have laughed at the irony of it. Civilized Port Royal. There was very little in the house that she wanted or needed, but she had the foresight to place one of Woodes' pistols in a rucksack, not without sparing a thought that he might be very far from safety tonight indeed.

"My father," Elizabeth said suddenly, as Eleanor was ushering her out of the house.

"What about him?"

The younger woman stopped in her tracks. "He'll be at home tonight. He might not know - "

"He'll be fine," Eleanor said, not caring if this might prove to be a lie or not. "He would want you to go to the fort." She had no idea what the governor of Port Royal wanted for his daughter; he seemed decent enough, but her experience with fathers was that they did not generally fall into the "decent" category. She tugged Elizabeth's arm a little harder.

"Ma'am," Mrs. Hudson said, "we should go now."

Eleanor listened: the barrage of cannon-fire ceased long enough that they could hear the telltale rumble of battle drawing closer to them.

"The fort," she affirmed with a nod to Mrs. Hudson, and a tightening of her grip on Elizabeth's arm.

She maintained that grip for half the journey, until they had to duck behind a blacksmithy to avoid a small band of men who were either pirates or opportunists taking advantage of the chaos, smashing windows and taking whatever wasn't nailed down. They pressed themselves against the wall, trying to stay small and quiet and generally invisible, until the shouting and smashing passed and the men moved on.

Except that Elizabeth, too, was gone.

"Damnation!" Eleanor said, casting around in the dark. She wanted to rail against the sky, but Mrs. Hudson was digging sharp fingers into her arm, her face urging silence. "She must have gone back for her father. Which way is the governor's mansion?"

Mrs. Hudson shook her head. A _no, I don't know,_ Eleanor supposed, or a _no, we're not doing that._ It hardly mattered: either Elizabeth would make her way to her father without falling into peril, or she wouldn't, and Eleanor and Mrs. Hudson with one pistol between them were no match against a pirate crew that had evidently made it past Port Royal's batteries.

And she hardly knew Elizabeth.

But there was a chance that the girl might wander back this way, if she realized that her quest was fruitless.

"I don't have much hope for the fort," Eleanor whispered across the dark. Either it was sealed by now, or it was in a condition that could bear to be considered - she sincerely hoped it was the former and not the latter. "There's a good chance that no one will give these buildings a second look now that they've been raided once."

With Mrs. Hudson's reluctant agreement, they climbed through a broken window into the smithy and huddled in what they determined to be the darkest, safest corner, out of view of the street.

Eleanor didn't sleep, though not for lack of trying. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Nassau burn, again and again.

* * *

"Dear _God_ , Eleanor, where have you been?"

Such were her husband's first words upon seeing her when she arrived at the fort in the morning. They were followed by a crushing embrace.

 _Dear God, Woodes, where have_ you _been?_

They parted, with Woodes' hands still on her shoulders; he smiled at her, strained. "I am so relieved to see you well," he said. "And I'm certain that Commodore Norrington will be as well."

Eleanor frowned. "Norrington loathes me."

"I meant," Woodes said, "that he will be happy to see his wife."

"His wife?"

"She is with you, isn't she?" Woodes looked around her, as if Eleanor was about to produce Elizabeth Norrington out of thin air or Mrs. Hudson's bag of tricks. Woodes let go of her shoulders and stepped back. "Her maid said that she was very agitated last night and spoke of seeing you. The woman went to call up the physician and returned to find Mrs. Norrington had left."

 _Damnit, Elizabeth!_ "She was with me," Eleanor said, "but she left."

"Left when? To go where?"

"On our way to the fort. She was worried about her father, I looked around and she was simply gone, Woodes! What was I supposed to do?"

Another row was forestalled by the swift approach of Commodore Norrington.

"My wife is with you?"

"I'm afraid not. We tried to keep her with us last evening, but she was insistent upon ensuring the safety of her father."

"Yes, well," Norrington said, "now I have the most excellent duty of reporting to her father - who is well and good - that his daughter, last seen in your company, Mrs. Rogers, has vanished entirely from Port Royal."

"What are you implying?"

Woodes looped an arm through hers as she was about to take a step forward and pulled her tightly against his side. "No one is implying anything, my dear." His eyes hardened as he looked at her. "Alright?"

"So has she been kidnapped? It only follows that there would be a ransom. Has anyone tried to contact you?"

"You speak as though these are businessmen, Mrs. Rogers," Norrington said.

"Well, it's not like they're ghosts!"

"They certainly moved through Port Royal as though they were." A Navy lieutenant approached Norrington and whispered something in his ear; the commodore nodded. He turned back to her and Woodes. "If you'll excuse me."

"But you haven't - "

"Since my wife seems to have a habit of falling prey to all manner of misfortune around you," Norrington said loudly, "I would prefer that you not be party to the details of her recovery. Good day, Mrs. Rogers."

The commodore turned on his heel and left them standing there.

"Woodes, I - "

"Go home, Eleanor." He steered her towards Mrs. Hudson. "I'll try and find out what I can. It will…be easier without you here."

* * *

It took her three days of whinging and whittling away at Woodes until she realized that neither he nor Norrington nor anyone else in Port Royal knew anything about where Elizabeth was, other than that she had been kidnapped by an unknown pirate crew who killed plenty but took little. And not only did they not know anything, but they were uninterested in Eleanor's assertions that _she_ might know something.

It took her considerably less time than that to devise a rescue plan.

The gaol in Port Royal was not much used, except for throwing drunks in; correspondingly, there was only one guard, who was all too-easily parted from his keys when Eleanor winked at him and then clocked him over the head with a pistol.

The pirate she found in a cell at the bottom of the stairs, as expected. He appeared to be sleeping, one arm flung over his face. Eleanor rattled the keys against the bars of the cell.

The pirate sat bolt upright. "Oh," he said, and immediately laid back down, perhaps upon realizing that she was not the hangman. "Fancy being imprisoned in Port Royal, if you're my last meal, love."

"Go fuck yourself," Eleanor said. "Are you the pirate known as Jack Sparrow?"

This seemed to perk him up. "You've heard of me, then?"

"Never. But allow me to introduce myself," Eleanor said, putting the key into the lock, "I'm Eleanor Guthrie, Queen of Thieves, and I'm giving you the opportunity to help me rescue a friend."

**Author's Note:**

> *cue Pirates of the Caribbean theme*


End file.
